Mad Men Recap: Season 3, Episode 3, "My Old Kentucky Home"

We generally think of performing as a way of opening up to the people we’re performing for, a way of sharing some bit of ourselves—be it a song or a dance or a comedy routine—with our friends or family or strangers. But that obscures some of the essential truth of what performance actually is, of what our relationship is both with those we’re performing for and those who perform to us. To perform is also to hide, to place a literal or figurative mask over your face and see if you can’t distract everyone from the things you’re really thinking or feeling just long enough to maybe distract yourself as well. When we talk about the irony of a sad comedian or how strange it is that a rock star on top of the world killed himself, what we’re really talking about is how good their games of distraction are. All art is driven by a variety of sources, but a lot of great art, a lot of art that really sticks with us, is driven by pain, even as that art tries to play a quick game of Three Card Monte to keep us from that fact.

Everybody in “My Old Kentucky Home,” written by Dahvi Waller and Matthew Weiner and directed by Jennifer Getzinger, is performing on one level or another. But, then, Mad Men, obsessed as it is with ideas of social conventions and both how we live up to them and subvert them, features a large cast of characters who are almost always performing for everyone they see. In some ways, they and the show take their cues from Don Draper (Jon Hamm), who’s spent his whole life pretending to be someone he’s not, the ultimate example of performance becoming reality. Don has been performing so long that when he has to add on that extra level of it—acting as though he’s comfortable at a party where he’s really not, say—it just doesn’t ever seem to work as well as when he’s striding around Sterling-Cooper or something of the sort.

“My Old Kentucky Home” actually foregrounds this theme almost blatantly, something Mad Men manages surprisingly well in this one. Joan (Christina Hendricks) plays the accordion for her dinner party guests. Roger (John Slattery) sings the song in the episode title while in blackface. The episode even begins with a scene where an actress is called in to audition for the Patio commercial Peggy (Elisabeth Moss) fought so hard against last week, Harry (Rich Sommer) leering in delight as she does the twist. Even if it were just these three characters, it would be something the episode was clearly trying to get at, but everyone on the show seems to be dealing with it one way or another. Even Sally Draper (Kiernan Shipka) engages in both the performance of a lie and the performance of reading aloud for her grandfather. And what’s she reading about? The end of the Roman Empire, a culture dedicated entirely to the pursuit of self-gratification and pleasure above all else in its dying days, dedicated to performance and self-deception as a way of life (or so the book would have it). Weiner and his writers all but dare you to insert your thoughts both on where the U.S. is heading in the years immediately following Mad Men and the decades to come right after that scene. The episode similarly ends on a note of performance, two people kissing romantically under a moonlit sky, their marriage at some level an act that they both agree to, but a very real and bruised connection underneath all of that that they both are working hard to preserve.

“Kentucky Home” spends most of its time at three gatherings: Roger and Jane’s (Peyton List) party to celebrate their marriage, a brainstorming session for an advertising campaign at the Sterling-Cooper offices and a dinner party thrown by Joan and her doctor husband, Greg (Sam Page). Parties and social outings are places where we put our performance skills to good use, avoiding, say, conflict in our marriages or our concerns about what our friends are doing, the better to have a fun evening that’s not filled with stress or conflict. So it’s an apt series of settings for this episode, with its interest in how we present ourselves to the world at large. I think the central scene here is supposed to be the meeting between Don and Connie (Chelcie Ross), who is likely meant to be Conrad Hilton, if the Internet hive-mind is to be believed. The two retreat to the bar to avoid the gatherings they’re both at the country club to attend, Don avoiding the distasteful scene where Roger performs in blackface. (I should mention that this scene is shockingly funny in a way that Mad Men’s “Hey, the ’60s were crazy!” references often aren’t. The humor doesn’t feel cheap, precisely because the episode pairs this with a rather sympathetic portrayal of the Drapers’ maid, Carla, but also because Roger has no idea how offensive this will seem in even six months, much less six years. Don, though driven by his sense of how out of his depth he is at this level of class, also seems to intuit this somehow. Probably because he’s Don, and that’s what he does.)

Connie and Don are both moving up the class ladder, climbing outside of the established social strata they were born in. Because people like Roger or Betty (January Jones) or Pete (Vincent Kartheiser) were born going to events like the country club party, they don’t quite realize the level of artificiality they’re dealing with, how class constructs pile on top of other class constructs to create something completely false. The level of unease that this causes both Don and Connie is something neither can articulate, most likely, but they feel it acutely, feel in their bones how they’ll never be LIKE someone like Roger. Even if Don couldn’t share the story about how he used to park cars with most people in his life because they would then have the ability to pick at the scab of his horrible secret, he REALLY can’t because they just won’t understand how those feelings, how that old self lying beneath the confident air he gives off, the perfected lie he performs at every moment of his life, lie beneath every inch of his skin. He’s a walking performance, and the incongruity between who he appears to be and who he is only makes itself felt in a queasiness that only someone like Connie could understand.

It’s interesting to note that this sequence features a number of smaller performance scenes within it (outside of the Roger in blackface scene). Take, for instance, Pete and Trudy (Allison Brie) dancing the Charleston to show off for the other guests, in a way that seemed both somehow hilariously desperate and deeply impressive. Pete, to some degree, longs for the way that things were, when his family name was enough to open any door in the city, to get him posh positions. Now, of course, there’s a wave coming that could carry Pete along with it—the youthful wave that will come to dominate the decade—but Pete’s simply unable to see what’s coming. He’s hung up on a world that’s rapidly disappearing, to the point where he dances a step that hasn’t been terribly popular since the 1920s. And yet, something about the joy on the faces of the two makes the whole thing seem worth it. These are two people who can’t have children, who have to listen as Harry and his wife and Don and Betty explain about their own pregnancy processes, two people who have to throw themselves into something to avoid paying attention to the way that they’ve come up short in the eyes of their current society. And the weird joy they bring to it is enough to make Harry’s wife angry at her husband when he drags her off the dance floor, thoroughly upstaged by Pete and Trudy.

The unease over class mobility and the acts of performance that go along with it isn’t confined to Roger and Jane’s party by any means. Indeed, it’s even present in the Sterling-Cooper offices, where Paul Kinsey (Michael Gladis) calls in his old college pal to deliver some weed, and we learn that Paul, back before all of the pretensions he wears now as a suit of armor, was just another scholarship kid with a thick accent who ended up in the New York area and saw an opportunity to move up in the world. These revelations cause him to become sulky and sullen, even as Peggy finds something in being high that allows her to come up with something approaching an ad campaign. We think of being drunk or high as a way to get past the disguises we wear every day, as something that cuts down to our true core and allows us to express our true selves. What Mad Men is showing here is just how miserable that can make so many of us. We’re not terribly happy with who we really are, and that’s why we put on these elaborate guises of being someone other than that. Anything that unburdens us of those costumes can cause just as much resentment as it does relief.

One of our final acts of performance comes from Joan, who’s steadily realizing that Greg is just as bad as his rape of her might have suggested. Even as she’s able to hold off his temper more and more (her ability to stop it dead in its tracks when he starts to grow angered by her insistence on following the rules of Emily Post by suggesting a compromise shows how quickly she’s learned to live within this marriage), she’s trapped further and further into a role that she feels increasingly uncomfortable with. At Sterling-Cooper, she’s the queen of the office, even if no one can see past her looks to what she could actually contribute (as they have with Peggy), but at home, she’s soon going to be simply a prop in Greg’s ascension to chief of medicine, though a necessary prop (if he’s ever going to overcome the stories of a death that occurred under his knife). What’s interesting about Mad Men’s portrayal of women in the early ’60s is that it doesn’t sink so low as to portray all of them fighting against their invisible cages, all budding, early feminists. They’re simply people who know what they want because they’ve been told that’s what they should want. But everyone on Mad Men is rapidly learning that there’s a vast gulf between what they expect they should want and what they actually do want.

The story where Betty’s dad tried to find the $5 that Sally stole from him and danced around the edges of blaming Carla felt almost like a network-mandated way to offset the Roger in blackface gag with a sympathetic portrayal of a black character, though I find it fascinating that Carla’s prominence has almost exactly conformed to how black people in the U.S. came steadily to prominence in the early ’60s before the mid-decade civil rights battles. Mostly, though, this was just a chance for the show to hit some of the notes it likes to hit—like showing how Don’s sins are reflected in his daughter or having her reading from Gibbon’s work on the Roman Empire as a metaphor for everything that is coming. It was less of a substantive comment on things than a grace note, and as a grace note, it mostly worked.

I’ve read a lot of criticism of this episode around the Internet, irritated that nothing substantive happens in it, that it’s more an expression of character and theme than a straightforward plot. To some degree, I wonder if these people have ever seen Mad Men or if this irritation stems from people who’ve seen the show on DVD and don’t realize how slow-moving it can seem when watched on a broadcast schedule. To me, “My Old Kentucky Home” is a sterling example of nearly everything Mad Men does well. You could, perhaps, complain that nothing happens in it, but Mad Men is less about substantive plot momentum than nearly any great drama in the history of the medium. Every season of Mad Men is a long drum roll that sustains, never quite reaching the point where it would burst forth in cacophony, but, instead, burying our heads in the noise, until all we can feel is the slow, mounting sense that Something Is Coming, and we, like the characters in Mad Men, will be swept aside by it.

Some other thoughts:

• Sorry for the lateness of this write-up. Things have gotten out of hand as I work on various fall TV preview articles for various outlets, but next week (with Labor Day breaking things up) should go better.
• I love Don’s takedown of Roger at the end of the night. “No one thinks you’re happy. They think you’re foolish.” I’m going to have to break that out at parties.
• That whole scene where Peggy and the others get high hits most of the stereotypical marijuana beats, but the fact that it’s these characters saying and doing these things makes them somehow newly hilarious and endearing. All of Paul’s angst about the Tiger Tones is also pretty great.
• I try not to be all prurient in these write-ups, but man, all of the female cast members looked like a million bucks in this episode.
• Looks like Sal (Bryan Batt) will have a storyline again in the next episode, which will be nice.
• Trying to get a sense of what people thought of this episode reminded me of why I try to read so little Mad Men commentary on the Internet. It’s not that I don’t think all criticism should begin from a point of healthy skepticism, but every season of this show has been structured roughly similarly. At this point, we should be used to it, yes?
• In the same week as Mad Men used blackface, Weeds did as well (though in a far less interesting fashion). Was there a third out there? Was this a part of some trend I just missed?

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Thanks for another thought-provoking piece! You got me to thinking about (or remembering) a few things to add to the discussion:

Three of the four main threads involved the mixing of business and personal lives: Roger';s party, which is really work; Joan';s dinner for Greg';s boss (wherein we see how she manages her home and her mate); and the weekend work session at the office. The lines between business and pleasure (or, at least, recreation--mandatory or spontaneous--are blurred, and there';s a sense that the ordinary rules don';t apply.

I don';t know about you, but for the first time I did feel that Peggy was more vulnerable than she thinks.

Why does Sally return the $5? Because she feels guilty, or because Gene (who seems to know she took it almost from the start) won';t give up? Gene doesn';t accuse Carla the maid of anything, but she feels accused, understandably. She may behave like she';s in charge, telling him to eat, but she';s not. The episode is about transgressions of one sort or another, who objects to them, and the possible repercussions.

I think Sally realizes the $5 have become more trouble than they';re worth--she just wants the tension to go away, for things back on an even keel. Same might be said for the way Joan handles herself (she';s a management pro, after all).

I expected Don to be more direct with Roger. I wish he';d told him: "You';re marrying my former secretary." Jane has disrupted the power structure at the office, and Roger won';t acknowledge it. (Meanwhile, Pete continues to try too hard. You';re right, the Charleston--though appropriate for the music--is too much of an affectation, impressive though it may be.)

Just a few thoughts...Posted by jim emerson on 2009-09-08 23:02:02

I thought Pete';s disgust at Roger';s blackface wasn';t due to race issues, but that Pete was bothered by the public display of affection and that Roger was making a fool out of himself.

I think Don';s remark to Roger at the end of the party best represented his views and Pete';s.Posted by black magic woman on 2009-09-08 01:10:40

I think Roger is a "Rockefeller Republican" in that that';s what someone of his class and station would say. I doubt Roger gives a damn about politics.Posted by Todd on 2009-09-06 21:36:13

Todd - VERY well-written and personally, the blackface scene with Roger really made my skin crawl.I think this representation of "the times" is pretty dead on - folks here have stated that this episode was "boring" and "slow" - I think it';s one of the best ever!

There is so much psychological background to MM - you bring it to the foreground - THANKS!!!

And - TGFS (thank God for Sunday) - another episode tonight!!Posted by Anonymous on 2009-09-06 17:42:32

Wow, what a weird mix of insightful comments and "comments" by bloggers who have never seen the show and just want us to visit their stupid blogs. Hey self-promoters: you are tacky. I will never visit your blogs now and in fact will fight for the rest of my life to ensure that no one else does either. You are being disrespectful to the readership of this blog. Get off my lawn.Posted by Marie on 2009-09-05 18:31:14

Sir,

I must say that it is quite a pity that one cannot receive as yet the 1950';s televisual feast of Mad Men that one is presently able to view on one';s AMC Television Channel, although, having said that, I do believe that our British Broadcasting Corporation might indeed screen the American television series later this year, & then I shall be able to judge it for myself. I bid you a very good day.

I am, &c.Alexander DylePosted by Alexander Dyle on 2009-09-05 09:49:22

Todd,

I have nothing to add except that I am really enjoying your reviews of the show every week.

There are numerous talented writers discussing the show every week but I find your insights the best. It';s worth waiting the extra few days for. Keep up the good work.

Too bad you weren';t around during ';The Sopranos';run.Posted by Anonymous on 2009-09-05 02:08:28

While I can';t speak to how long blackface lingered as a semi-acceptable form of entertainment, there was an episode of "All in the Family" in which Archie Bunker appears in blackface as part of a minstrel show at his lodge. At the time (1975) it must have seemed shocking, but probably not nearly so much as Roger';s act does today.See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_All_in_the_Family_episodes#Season_6:_1975-1976Posted by John on 2009-09-05 00:54:18

Todd, I agree with most everything that you wrote- your analysis is spot-on. But I can';t get quite as enthusiastic about this episode (and this season so far) as you are.

This season might have some more interesting places to go, but it certainly seems to be spinning its wheels so far. You';re right that complaining about the lack of "Mad Men" plot developments is fairly absurd, but I think the show hasn';t been developing THEMATICALLY in the least. Perhaps we haven';t had an episode yet that focused so clearly on "performance," and for that reason alone this episode worked better than the last two. But the themes are so consistent and repetitive that watching the show is becoming like a sort of "Where';s Waldo" for Themes of Social Change and Problems of Identity. Without finding more interesting places to take these ideas (and I don';t think they will), the writers need to find something new for this show to be about.

Less "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Wink Wink Audience Get It?!?!!!," please, and more time with these characters!Posted by Doug Eacho on 2009-09-05 00:26:53

Well, Olive';s not just an ordinary secretary. She';s a secretary whose college age son decided not to bring home his girlfriend that weekend for a visit and whose husband took a trip to the dump. If she';s hourly, she';s making money instead of sitting around at home alone, and she';s trying to impress a new boss. I don';t think it';s weird she went to work on a Saturday.Posted by KarenX on 2009-09-04 23:53:05

Further, I didn';t think either the "Blackface" or the buying/smoking pot in the office in 1963 was believable.

1. Blackface took a lot longer to die out than you might expect.

2. Pot smoking was around long before the Summer of Love. "Reefer Madness" was made in the mid-1930s.Posted by Anonymous on 2009-09-04 20:41:08

"Secondly, I thought Olive';s actions were also unbelievable. I doubt a secretary would show up on Saturday if her boss said she didn';t have to."

Yes, that is unlikely, but I thought it was a great, odd, slightly surreal little touch, having this old mommy figure tsk-tsking everything in the background. In my mind, those little surrealist grace notes take Mad Men from well-constructed drama to daring, unpredictable story-telling.Posted by Matthew Chester on 2009-09-04 19:57:16

I';ve never seen an episode of "Mad Men", but I just wanted to comment on your refreshingly thoughtful take on it. It definitely makes me want to start watching the show now. Great, great commentary. Thanks.http://anglesofthecity.blogspot.com/Posted by glutton4punishment on 2009-09-04 19:28:37

As I read over this well-written commentary, I was struck by the fact that while it is true that everyone is putting on a mask or persona of performance, the one person who';s not doing that so much in this episode is Don.

I disagree. I think he was putting on a mask just as much as everyone else. The only time that mask really slipped was his encounter with Connie. His reaction to Roger was a prime example of how appearances and putting on masks mean a lot to him.Posted by The Rush Blog on 2009-09-04 18:46:45

Pete is an ambiguous figure. We don';t really know why he seemed to be bothered by the blackface Was it that it was a spectacle? Was it because he thought it was inappropriate? I';m not buying that it';s because Pete was raised by his black nanny - most of the folks of his social class were (I suspect Roger included), and that doesn';t count for much. We know Pete likes the idea of the old world, where who you are means something, but he also steps out of his bubble from time to time, like when he professed his love for Peggy. Pete seems to be straddling the past and the future, with more of a foot in the past than a seeming readiness for the things to come.

There';s nothing that Mad Men has shown us to give us any reason to believe that Roger is particularly enlightened on issues of race (or sex for that matter). I';m sure he figured that it would be funny. And people laughed, so there you go.

Joan';s scenes just broke my heart. Joan seems to constantly not get what she truly deserves. It';s so unfair.

I thought this ep was the best so far.Posted by Anonymous on 2009-09-04 18:13:21

As I read over this well-written commentary, I was struck by the fact that while it is true that everyone is putting on a mask or persona of performance, the one person who';s not doing that so much in this episode is Don.

I';m thinking of Don';s calling a spade a spade in reponse to his father-in-law';s missing $5. It';s not always about money, but this time it is.

Admitting parts of his past to Connie at the country club--very much unlike the guarded persona Don uses with most people.

"People don';t think you';re happy. They think you';re foolish." Could anyone be any less pretentious and more direct?

I';ve seen some on the net have complained this episode doesn';t have much depth--I disagree. Don is the poster child of duplicity, but this episode shows that Don is not the only person with a face he puts on for others.Posted by Anonymous on 2009-09-04 15:28:36

A great look at an unusually strong episode. The script managed to inject another layer of meaning for practically every character (not an easy feat) and it was also one of the few directed by a woman (which I wish MM would do more often).Posted by Anonymous on 2009-09-04 14:33:08

spot on. great review. is there any other show on tv that can provoke such thoughtful examination after every episode? i think not. thank you for sharing your insights.Posted by Anonymous on 2009-09-04 08:03:08

Now, of course, there's a wave coming that could carry Pete along with it â€“ the youthful wave that will come to dominate the decade â€“ but Pete's simply unable to see what's coming. He's hung up on a world that's rapidly disappearing, to the point where he dances a step that hasn't been terribly popular since the 1920s.

If this is how Matt Weiner is portraying Pete . . . now, then he is being contradictory in his portrayal of the character. For the past two seasons have described Pete as someone who has a bead on the future and who is more impressed with guys like Don who manages to rise up in the world, than those who are born in privilege. So, what is it, Mr. Weiner? Is Pete Campbell someone who looks toward the future, or someone who prefers to live in the past?

"First, the Blackface, Roger is a "Rockefeller Republican" and as such would have been in favor of civil rights. Even in 1963, and even someone like Roger, wouldn';t have been that insensitive."

Considering Roger';s past views on race, I really cannot see him as the type of Republican embodied by the likes of Rockefeller, Wilkie, Eisenhower or even Nixon of the 1950s.

I also found myself thinking of that scene in which Don criticized Roger for making a fool of himself; and Roger complaining that people do not like to see others happy.

Both of them were right . . . to a degree. Perhaps Roger';s actions regarding his marriage to Jane and his "rendition" of MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME were signs that he should be a little more conspicuous. On the other hand, I think Don has become too hung up on appearances to the point that he is willing to forego any kind of personal happiness for the sake of it.

I hate to say this but I';m getting a little tired of Peggy. I get it. She';s going to be part of the new wave of feminism in the workforce. But Weiner is now shoving this down our throats and Peggy - to me - is coming off as a little too perfect for my tastes.Posted by The Rush Blog on 2009-09-04 06:32:58

I actually thought the pot scene was funny but this may highlight the difference between watching it on cable and downloading through iTunes/streaming or whatever where interruptions are non-existent.

Also, I thought the bar scene between Don and the mystery man was great. I';ve read theories that he could be Conrad Hilton.Posted by Ben on 2009-09-04 05:34:09

Couldn';t agree more, Todd, regarding confusion at the negative reaction. I';m not even sure what "It was slow!" means in the context of MM.Posted by Brad on 2009-09-04 04:49:17

Todd,

Great write-up but I disagree with so much. To me the "Where';s my $5?" subplot was incredibly boring as was the endless pot scene. Further, I didn';t think either the "Blackface" or the buying/smoking pot in the office in 1963 was believable.

First, the Blackface, Roger is a "Rockefeller Republican" and as such would have been in favor of civil rights. Even in 1963, and even someone like Roger, wouldn';t have been that insensitive. One could argue he was actually mimicking "Al Jolson" who was still doing black face in the early 50s.

Secondly, I thought Olives action were also unbelievable. I doubt a Secretary would show up on Saturday if her boss said she didn';t have to. Nor do I think she would have looked the other way, when Peggy went to smoke Pot. OF course, this all could have ramifications down the road.

I';m surprised you didn';t write more about Pete';s Charleston dance.Posted by rcocean on 2009-09-04 03:06:25